EU criticizes 'aggressive' tax practices of 7 member states

The European Commission has criticized seven member states for "aggressive" tax practices, whereby governments try to undercut others to attract multinational companies.

The European Union's executive branch said Belgium, Cyprus, Hungary, Ireland, Luxembourg, Malta and the Netherlands were informed Wednesday that they have tax policies that undermine the integrity of the European single market.

Pierre Moscovici, the commissioner responsible for tax policy, said these practices have "the potential to undermine the fairness and the level playing field in our internal market and they increase the burden on EU taxpayers."

The criticism follows widespread concern that some countries have been manipulating their tax regimes to attract big global multinational companies. Some of the companies to have benefited from this include tech giants Apple, Facebook and Google.